Russian
S-300 air defense missile systems will be shipped to Iran in August
or September of this year. The contract was renewed in 2015 after
international sanctions against Tehran were lifted following a
nuclear deal signed with world powers.

The
delivery of the first vehicles of the S-300 complex will be made in
about half a year’s time, Sergey Chemezov, the head of the Russian
state-owned high-tech giant Rostec, told RIA Novosti.

According
to the Rostec chief, the delivery will be completed by the end of
2016.

He
also said that the delay was caused by Tehran’s $4 billion lawsuit
against Russia’s arms export agency, Rosoboronexport, at an
international court in Geneva, which was filed in 2010 and is still
active.

“We
have agreed [with the Iranians] that the lawsuit will be withdrawn
immediately after the first batch is delivered,” Chemezov
explained.

There
have been numerous reports about S-300 deliveries to Iran within the
last year.

In
November 2015, Iranian ambassador Mehdi Sanaei told the
Persian-language daily Etemaad that the “delivery is underway.”

Earlier
that month, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan had announced
Tehran would receive the Russian air defense systems by the end of
the year, which for Iran is March 20, 2016.

Tehran
is going to buy “as many S-300 air defense systems as it needs,”
Brigadier General Dehghan stressed at the time.

Iran
is expected to get one of the latest versions of the air defense
complex, the S-300PMU-2 Favorit, manufactured by Almaz-Antey.

In
mid-February, Iran's General Staff told Russia’s Sputnik news
agency that delivery is scheduled for “tomorrow.”

However,
there has been no confirmed information about Iran having receiving
any S-300 complexes on its territory.

The
initial S-300 contract between Moscow and Tehran was signed in 2007
and implied the delivery of five S-300 squadrons worth US$800
million.

The
contract was put on hold in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev
due to the UN sanctions imposed on Iran.

Russian
President Vladimir Putin repealed the ban in April 2015.

The
last time Russia supplied S-300 systems abroad was in 2010, when 15
squadrons were delivered to China.